Wednesday, March 28, 2012

If Odd Arrangements and Funny Solutions are the Proof of Evolution, Then What About These Optimized Designs?

You’ve heard all those evolutionary arguments about how nature’s sloppy, repetitive, inefficient and downright evil designs prove evolution. Then what about the many optimized designs in biology, such as those in this New York Timesarticle, suggested by a friend, such as our eye’s ability to detect even a single photon:

Photoreceptors operate at the outermost boundary allowed by the laws of physics, which means they are as good as they can be, period. Each one is designed to detect and respond to single photons of light — the smallest possible packages in which light comes wrapped. …

Photoreceptors exemplify the principle of optimization, an idea, gaining ever wider traction among researchers, that certain key features of the natural world have been honed by evolution to the highest possible peaks of performance, the legal limits of what Newton, Maxwell, Pauli, Planck et Albert will allow.

So all those sloppy, repetitive, inefficient, evil designs revealed and proved evolution because, after all, evolution has no guiding light but can only work with whatever random mutations will give it. But when optimized designs are found, evolution suddenly becomes the brilliant physicist, honing master designs.

There are many more such examples of optimized designs, such as how bacteria optimize their search for food, how fruit fly embryos use the concentration of a particular protein, and how sharks detect tiny voltages in the water:

Scientists have identified and mathematically anatomized an array of cases where optimization has left its fastidious mark, among them the superb efficiency with which bacterial cells will close in on a food source; the precision response in a fruit fly embryo to contouring molecules that help distinguish tail from head; and the way a shark can find its prey by measuring micro-fluxes of electricity in the water a tremulous millionth of a volt strong — which, as Douglas Fields observed in Scientific American, is like detecting an electrical field generated by a standard AA battery “with one pole dipped in the Long Island Sound and the other pole in waters of Jacksonville, Fla.” In each instance, biophysicists have calculated, the system couldn’t get faster, more sensitive or more efficient without first relocating to an alternate universe with alternate physical constants.

As usual, all this is a surprise to evolutionists:

On Wednesday, Dr. Bialek will discuss his take on biological optimization at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, in a public lecture fetchingly titled “More Perfect Than We Imagined: A Physicist’s View of Life.”

Muscles provide more examples of optimization:

Dr. Todorov has studied how we use our muscles, and here, too, he finds evidence of optimization at play.

And the brain:

The brain, too, seems built to tolerate bloopers and static hiss. Simon Laughlin of Cambridge University has proposed that the brain’s wiring system has been maximally miniaturized, condensed for the sake of speed to the physical edge of signal fidelity.

Aside from the problem of how random mutations are supposed to have accomplished such wonders, and aside from the obvious just-so story that “evolution did it again,” there is the other problem such fine-tuning of designs may well be beyond the resolution of selection. Can we really believe that the ability to detect a single photon provided an important advantage over a higher threshold, such as two photons, or ten, or 20?

The answer, of course, is “of course.” After all, that’s the design, and it must have evolved.

Optimized hardware compression, The eyes have it. - February 2011Excerpt: the human visual processing system is “the best compression algorithm around”.http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/optimised-hardware-compression-the-eyes-have-it/

This following study and videos highlight the profound mystery as to the question of 'what exactly in our brains is receiving the sight of our eyes?' i.e. Exactly which molecules are suppose to be the 'self aware, conscious, molecules' to receive the light and comprehend it as sight?:

Kenneth Ring and Sharon Cooper (1997) conducted a study of 31 blind people, many of who reported vision during their NDEs. 21 of these people had had an NDE while the remaining 10 had had an out-of-body experience (OBE), but no NDE. It was found that in the NDE sample, about half had been blind from birth.http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2320/is_1_64/ai_65076875/

Blind Woman Can See During Near Death Experience - Pim Lommel - videohttp://www.metacafe.com/watch/3994599/blind_woman_can_see_during_near_death_experience_pim_lommel_nde/

Again, what we observe is that photon receptors are hard to vary without significantly reducing their ability to detect light.

That they actually were designed for the purpose of detecting light by an intelligent designer isn't evident based on observations alone.

As such, you're extrapolating these observations through an explanatory framework, rather than holding a neutral position, as you claim. Nor is it clear how it would even possible to hold a "neutral" position when extrapolating observations in the first place.

Scott first you broadly allude to the extreme intolerance of photon receptors to variation, then you inexplicably state;

'That they actually were designed for the purpose of detecting light by an intelligent designer isn't evident based on observations alone.'

Yet designed systems are notorious for being built within extremely tight tolerances, whereas Darwinism presupposes that systems where built happenstance by whatever happened to be lying around. In fact a key proposition in evolutionary thinking is that vision is 'bad design', and that there is always room to improve vision (hence the infamous, and fallacious, backwards retina argument). In fact I once had a evolutionists, even though he could not account for the origination of a single protein in the vision cascade, claim that human vision was not optimal because he could not personally see in 360 degree surround vision. I kid you not! :)

Notes:

"How came the Bodies of Animals to be contrived with so much Art…. Was the Eye contrived without skill in Opticks, and the Ear without Knowledge of Sounds?" -Sir Isaac Newton

Proverbs 20:12The hearing ear and the seeing eye, The LORD has made both of them.

The Seeing Eye - part 1 of 2 - Dr. David Mentonhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEXjEjFiW2A

Evolution Vs. The Miracle Of The Eye - Molecular Animation of vision cascadehttp://www.metacafe.com/watch/4189562/

Again, what we observe is that photon receptors are hard to vary without significantly reducing their ability to detect light.

That they actually were designed for the purpose of detecting light by an intelligent designer isn't evident based on observations alone.

Being "notorious" isn't direct, observable evidence of find tuning, which you keep whining about being absent in the case of evolution.

So, again, despite Cornelius claiming to be neutral on the subject, it would appear that, in reality, he's actually not.

Born: You are kidding right? Do you want me to list the tolerance specs of man-made machines compared to protein machines? Here is one of numerous examples I could site:

Which, again, isn't, as you call it, "direct observable evidence" of what you're inferring: fine tuning by an intelligent designer for that particle purpose. Surely, I'd expect you to be quite aware of what what a lack of "direct observable evidence" is referring to, since you keep reminding us that we have no "direct evidence" that evolution is true, right?

What we actually observe it something that is hard to vary without significantly reducing it's ability to perform that particular purpose, not that it was actually intended to serve that purpose by a designer.

So, again, the conclusion that it was find tuned represents extrapolation of observations though an explanatory framework, which isn't neutral.

Or are you suggesting that direct observations are not important in the case of ID, but is important in the case of evolution?

Whatever Scott. The design 'inference' wins hands down! Indeed the inference to design uses the same methodology of reasoning as Darwin himself used to establish the plausibility of his hypothesis! Thus if you were actually concerned with being 'scientific', and actually concerned with pursuing the simple truth of this matter, instead of apparently being obtuse to the point of absurdity, as you have a tendency to be, you would readily concede that design is, by far, the best explanation for the optimization we directly observe in life.

You could have stopped right there, as you still haven't presented any "direct observations" that a designer actually did it. As such, it still represents extrapolating observations using an explanatory framework, which is not "neutral".

That is, unless you have some form of "direct observations" you're considering, but have yet to disclose.

Born: Indeed the inference to design uses the same methodology of reasoning as Darwin himself used to establish the plausibility of his hypothesis!

At which point, it seems clear you don't even have a clue as to what my argument is. So, this would be yet another example of you posting links, regardless if they are even relevant or not.

Why should we even bother responding given the significant disconnect you keep exhibiting?

Again, Cornelius makes claims which he presents as "neutral science." However, even if we assume that "direct observations" play the role he claims they do, he's not natural as we lack "direct observations" that proteins are actually finely tuned, that evolution is "scientifically unlikely", etc.

Rather, such claims would represent extrapolating observations using an explanatory framework.

In fact, it's unclear how, any observations could be make without first putting them into an explanatory framework, let alone that proteins are fine-tuned, etc.

At least Cornelius knows what questions he should carefully avoid. As Abraham Lincoln put it, "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt."

ba77, thank you for confirming that ID is a religious agenda. Thank you for confirming that you don't have a clue about science and reality. Thank you for confirming that you're always wrong and absurd. And thank you for continuing to confirm that you're a narcissistic nutcase.

That's right whole, I conspired, because of my religious agenda, to stuff a cell with exquisite, unsurpassed, technology that engineers can only dream of imitating. Dang, and I was hoping to keep the religious conspiracy thing a secret! :)